WWF RAW March 15 1993 Review (A Giant Snowball Of Nothing)

Tomás Cunha
Oct 29, 2022
6 min read

Updated: Apr 25

March 15th, 1993 Location: Poughkeepsie, New York, USA (Mid-Hudson Civic Center) TV rating: 2.9 (USA Network) [down 0.1 from the previous week’s 3.0]

Hello everyone. Welcome to another RAW review as we get closer and closer to WrestleMania IX. This is the first time RAW isn’t taking place in the Manhattan Center, since the blizzard known as the “storm of the century” forced WWF to change the arena. This week has Bob Backlund vs. Papa Shango and The Nasty Boys vs. The Headshrinkers.

Here is the list of champions in the WWF heading into this RAW:

WWF Champion: Bret Hart [154th day of his reign] – previous champion: Ric Flair
WWF Intercontinental Champion: Shawn Michaels [139th day of his reign] – previous champion: The British Bulldog
WWF World Tag Team Champions: Money Inc. (Ted DiBiase & Irwin R. Schyster) [153rd day of their reign] – previous champions: The Natural Disasters (Earthquake & Typhoon)

Enjoy the review!

Your hosts are Gorilla Monsoon, Bobby Heenan & “Not Vince McMahon” (aka Rob Bartlett with yet another HYSTERICAL impersonation)

We see clips of the streets filled with snow due to the huge blizzard, while the commentators (well, I should say Heenan and Gorilla) shill tonight’s events and other WWF-related stuff.

If you’re wondering, the actual Vince McMahon missed this episode because he was out on some award show representing the WWF. Savage was there with him too, hence his absence as well.

RAW’s intro plays.

Razor Ramon vs. Russ Greenberg

Razor unloads on Russ (or is it Ross?) right away and shoves him off the corner. Russ goes for something off the ropes, but Razor catches him rather easily and gives him a fallaway slam. Razor humiliates the jobber with some bitchslaps before hitting him with a huge chokeslam. Razor takes him up top for a backdrop superplex, and the Razor’s Edge ends it at 3:08.

Rating: Razor Ramon squash matches are never not fun to watch. He has both the charisma and the arsenal of moves to not only totally dominate, but also humiliate the job guys. Props to Ross for making Razor’s stuff look like a million dollars here. Or is it Russ!? 3/4*

Typhoon vs. LA Gore

For some reason Typhoon comes out to Earthquake’s theme song, who had left WWF earlier in the year. Of course, Typhoon would do the same not long afterwards, shocking the world with his masterful WCW debut that August.

Typhoon overpowers LA Gore with some shoving followed by a shoulderblock. Bartlett is really annoying the f-ck outta me with his stupid “Vince-like” commentary. Typhoon with a corner clothesline and a hiptoss out of the corner. Suplex by Typhoon followed by a sloppy powerslam. Corner splash and a Typhoon splash puts LA away at 2:57.

Rating: With an actual natural disaster going on outside, the world was just dying for a Typhoon singles push. Time to pull the plug on Sheik Tugboat now that Sgt. Slaughter is retired, I guess! Anyway, this was indeed a thing that happened. 1/4*

Bobby Heenan is in the ring for an interview, but he gets cut off because… it’s PROMOTIONAL CONSIDERATION PAID FOR BY THE FOLLOWING time!

We’re back with Heenan furious at the timekeeper for not giving him his cue. This guy is awesome! He introduces Giant Gonzalez and Harvey Wippleman for an interview. Speaking of awesome, right?

Giant Gonzalez & Harvey Wippleman interview

Harvey puts over Giant Gonzalez and his, uhm, accomplishments thus far. These “accomplishments” include debuting at the Royal Rumble to eliminate The Undertaker, interrupting a battle royal a number of weeks earlier on RAW, and making jobbers run from him on television. Harvey promises the “most awesome force in WWF” will destroy Undertaker at WrestleMania. Gonzalez says he has a giant surprise for Taker. Thrilling promo.

A video airs promoting Hulk Hogan’s return to the wrestling ring live on PPV at WM 9. It also mentions Bret/Yoko very briefly.

Bob Backlund vs. Papa Shango

Now Papa Shango’s random squash last week makes more sense. Well, that’s a bit of a stretch, but you know what I mean. Backlund gets a couple of single-leg takedowns to start. Papa Shango wins a test of strength, but Backlund grabs the arm to reverse it. Drop toehold by Backlund and he goes to work on Shango, who then catches a charging Backlund with a backbreaker. Papa Shango beats up Backlund on the outside for a while and drops a low headbutt back in the ring. Gorilla and Heenan are starting to get real pissed off at Bartlett. Who ever thought these two would ever agree on anything!!? Only someone like Rob Bartlett could ever pull that off. Meanwhile, Papa Shango takes over with his boring offense which consists of a chinlock. A looooooong chinlock. Backlund fights out of it, but Papa Shango slams him. However, Backlund with a small package out of nowhere wins at 6:58.

Rating: Not terrible. Just incredibly boring. *

WrestleMania IX Report w/ Mean Gene

Gene announces that all WWF personnel, including him, will be wearing togas at the event.
Mean Gene hypes up the main event and shows a video of Yokozuna destroying a jobber after a match during an interview with Raymond Rougeau on WWF Superstars.
We hear from Money Inc, who promise they have a special custom-made briefcase just for the Mega Maniacs.
Undertaker and Paul Bearer cut a brief promo on Giant Gonzalez and Harvey Wippleman. They talk about nightmares, sleepless nights and creepy stuff like that.
Luger/Perfect is coming up at WM 9 as well.

WWF Mania ad with Todd Pettengill.

Main Event

The Nasty Boys (Brian Knobbs & Jerry Sags) vs. The Headshrinkers (Samu & Fatu)

The Nasty Boys each kiss the fat RAW girl before the match. Afa is not at ringside for this one. Samu takes over with a corner clothesline on Knobbs, who then fights back with a clothesline out of the corner followed by a backdrop. See, it would be funny if Bartlett added “baaaaaaaaaaaack bodydrop” instead of saing RAAAAAAAAW over and over again. But that would be asking him to be funny, so what can you do. The Nasties with a double-team backdrop to Samu and then Sags with a double clothesline to both Headshrinkers. That gets two on Fatu. The Nasty Boys take turns going after Fatu’s arm as we take a break.

Commercial break

We come back with the Headshrinkers in control. Fatu dumps Sags to the outside where Samu slams him on the floor. The Samoans with a double headbutt to Sags back in the ring, and Samu goes up but misses a flying headbutt, opening the door for the hot tag to Knobbs. The Headshrinkers go for a double backdrop on him, only for Brian to reverse it into a double DDT to both of them. IT’S BREAKING LOOSE IN TULSA as they take the fight up the ramp and the match ends in a draw via double count-out at 9:00. It ends up turning into a food fight with chairs and mustard (WITH EXTRA MUSTARD!) getting involved.

Rating: Alright match for what it was, but I don’t know what was the goal of this. We’re approaching WM 9, where the Headshrinkers are facing the Steiners and the Nasty Boys are off the card after literally HANDING their title shot to Hogan and Beefcake (yep…), yet here they are wrestling to a draw and getting into a food fight that will lead to nothing. This wasn’t bad but again, much like most of this early episodes of RAW… what was the point? *1/2

They show a video of WWF’s charitable work narrated by Sean Mooney. That’s always nice. We get a rare mention of Vince McMahon as the WWF’s CEO at the end of said video.

Gorilla and Heenan close the show by saying they’ll bury Bartlett in the snow outside. That would’ve been a more interesting episode, actually.

END OF THE SHOW

Final thoughts: Another week, another skippable RAW with little (if any) effort to try to sell WrestleMania to the audience, with the show coming up in 2 weeks. Stuff happened here, but nothing was particularly interesting. Rob Bartlett continues to ruin the show too. The worst RAW of the series thus far in my view. 3/10

Check out all my RAW reviews here

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